In the UK, where I live, most people are reluctant to confront somebody head-on. We prefer to hint or speak in roundabout ways rather than tell somebody that he is plain wrong. There has been quite a bit of this sort of roundabout speech between Job and his comforters. For example, when Bildad describes the terrors of hell (Job 18), he leaves Job to ″join the dots″ with his own experience and make the deduction that he, Job, must be an impenitent sinner. But in today's passage, Eliphaz is going to come right out with it!

Job 22:2-4 are not so easy to understand. Eliphaz says that nothing we do can influence God, in the sense of biasing the way He treats us. The idea is that God's treatment of us is 100 per cent consistent, and it depends entirely on our behaviour. There are no exceptions: good things happen consistently to good people, and bad things to bad people.

In verse 5, Eliphaz looks Job in the eye and says: ″Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?″ This is pretty strong! Job, you are far from blameless and upright–you are a terrible sinner! In verses 6-9, Eliphaz expands on Job's supposed sins: he has used his great power (v. 8), exploiting people who are weaker than himself, as so many powerful men do. ″That is why snares are all around you, why sudden peril terrifies you,″ he says (v. 10). Eliphaz has no evidence that would stand up in a court of law, but Job's terrible sufferings prove to him that Job must be a terrible sinner. How wrong he is!

In verses 12-20, Eliphaz, in line with what Bildad and Zophar have also said, insists that God can see Job's sins, however much he tries to hide them, and God will punish him for them. In his previous speech, Job had claimed that people who say to God, ″Leave us alone!″, often prosper (21:14)–but Eliphaz refutes this (22:20).

And so, in verses 21-30, Eliphaz closes his final speech with a beautiful and impassioned appeal to Job to repent. If Job would repent (the word ″return″ in verse 23 means ″repent″), then God may restore and bless him. It is a beautiful and biblical appeal . . . so what is wrong with it? Everything! Job is not suffering because he is an impenitent sinner; we know from chapters 1 and 2 that Job is suffering precisely because he is blameless and upright. These innocent sufferings reach their fulfilment in the cross of Christ and overflow today into the undeserved sufferings of the people of Christ who suffer with Him (Romans 8:17).